EVERETT — Police said they’ve busted up a murder-for-hire plot at the Snohomish County Jail.
One man allegedly wanted to pay his cellmate $300 to launch a killing rampage. Among the prospective victims were the suspect’s ex-girlfriend, their 7-month-old daughter, neighbors and her relatives, according to a court document filed Tuesday in Everett District Court.
The cellmate alerted corrections officers to the plan Sunday.
“We are investigating this as what most people would call a murder-for-hire case,” Everett Police Sgt. Robert Goetz said.
The suspect, 41, of Everett, has been in jail since Oct. 1 awaiting trail for trying to choke his girlfriend with a towel while holding a pistol to her head, the document said.
Since Friday, the suspect had been confined with the man who told police about the alleged murder plot.
Jail officials separated the two Sunday after the cellmate passed a note to a guard that read, “My cellmate kept asking me to kill his girlfriend. And he kept saying when he got out he (is) going to kill her, his baby, and her ex, and (he would) get mad if I do not say, ‘Yes.’ Please move me somewhere else.”
The cellmate said the suspect had slammed his head into a wall loosening a tooth, the document said. The cellmate declined to pursue assault charges.
During an interview with police, the cellmate told detectives the suspect would become enraged, pace the cell and punch the walls in the middle of the night when talking about his ex-girlfriend. The suspect told the cellmate his ex-girlfriend was still married and likely still seeing her husband, which only added to his anger, the document said.
The suspect told his cellmate he had access to several firearms and was an Army veteran with extensive training, the document said.
After his release, he planned to kill the ex-girlfriend, his daughter, the estranged husband, neighbors and other relatives, the document said.
Detectives believe the jail cell conversations escalated when the man tried to launch a plan to hire his cellmate to go to his girlfriend’s door while he waited nearby. The suspect knew the woman wouldn’t open the door if he was there, according to the document.
Once the woman walked out of the house, the suspect planned to “snatch” her and “beat the hell out of her,” the document said. Then he planned to shoot the baby and others.
“Nobody else is going to raise my baby, and if I can’t have her then nobody can,” the suspect told his cellmate, the document said.
In addition to a domestic violence assault charge, the suspect now also is jailed for investigation of criminal solicitation of first-degree murder. A judge Tuesday set bail at $250,000.
“The suspect was in custody at the time of the incident and he remains there,” Goetz said.
Reporter Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437 or jholtz@heraldnet.com.
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